Fragile: Handle with Care
by KitCat Italica
Summary: They both have baggage, all stamped with the same label – as Alfred is soon to discover. Established slash Bruce/Joker


Fragile: Handle with Care

Alfred's footsteps seemed to betray his caution more than anything else. He trod down the old familiar halls of the mansion lightly, not wanting to disturb the dark secrets lurking within. Most specifically, the two bearers of the secrets who were asleep down the hall.

This had been going on for a few months now, but he knew the extent of the secret in itself had origins far beyond that, maybe even to the years ago when they had first met. Exactly how long it had been in progression was unknown to anyone but the two of them, and maybe not even that. But when he thought about it too much in the too-still hallways, in these few moments before the crack of dawn, his mind just became so disgusted that it almost made him physically sick. It nearly _had_, several times in the past. But he was beginning to adjust, as he knew fate would require of him. _Ending_ the process of adjustment, however, now _that_ was an entirely different story.

Bruce had one day asked to talk, and tried to explain to him as best he could the situation, ending with asking permission to house…_him_…in the manor at night. As time wore on, the freak exploited his privileges and turned the nightly visits into the daylight hours as well, sometimes never leaving for weeks at a time. But Alfred's heart had skipped a beat that day when his master continued to let the blasphemous words exit his mouth, and it seemed ever since he was trying to catch back up in vain. Things had changed that day for the two of them, and he wasn't sure that anything would ever settle between them the same way.

It had started the prickling of traitorous thoughts in his head, which was something he berated himself for, but at the same time knew deep down that he was indeed justified in thinking along those paths. Not revealing Batman to the public, oh no, things would go even farther to hell if he did that, but…leaving. Giving. Up. He had held out so long on Bruce Wayne that it seemed folly to quit now, but now with this…with _him_ of all people, out of _all_ the criminals that he fought every night that he could have let this happen with…

But whenever the inkling nagged at him, he always brushed it away and continued his duties. Maybe because thinking about it would make the reality finally hit him at its hardest, and he would lose it altogether, as he had jokingly been sure that taking care of Batman would do him in years ago. But maybe he really knew the answer deep down inside, a firmer truth beyond his pretentions.

Maybe he stayed because he was the only true human being Bruce had left.

And if he walked out now, Gotham would fall to pieces, following the lead of its caped defender.

So on he walked, cautiously all the same, but ever steadfastly forward. Batman required bravery, but his caretaker required a different kind of courage. And he felt himself relying on those hidden reserves of strength on nearly a daily and nightly basis as he let these proceedings happen around him in the home he served.

He reached the door. Time to wake Master Wayne up for his eight o'clock meeting. He was sure to come plenty early, for when he entered the room the Joker was sure to wake up as well, and distract and annoy them both to no end with the sole intent of making Bruce late. Well, maybe for other, more personal reasons, but Alfred would not allow himself to dwell on such prospects.

The door slowly swung open into the darkened room. Light from the hallway splashed on the walls, but just glanced over the shapes on the bed. Maybe it was better he wasn't greeted with any sort of perverse sight right before he woke Bruce up. Not that it hadn't happened before, but the less it did, the better.

He approached the bedside, letting his eyes adjust to the darker interior of the bedroom as he stepped ever onward. The shapes became more defined, and he realized the bed beneath them both was still completely made up; no covers or sheets had been used. _That_ would have certainly been quite the sight for the butler, had they not still been fully dressed as well: Bruce in the jeans and old gray T-shirt he had thrown on after his nightly crusade, Joker in his usual purple ensemble, save for his shoes, socks, and gloves. Such a notion brought the first tendrils of suspicion in Alfred's mind. _Nothing had happened last night._ Could it be…could this be part of a promising trend? A sign, even, that this atrocity was coming to an end, and everything would go back to, if not normal, then to what it was before?

Upon glancing again, he knew such was not the case; if the presence of their clothes told a tale of rocky relations, their positions of cradling each other told a different story. Bruce lay on his side, facing the side of the room Alfred was standing in, and Joker lay behind him, facing the same way. The madman's leg wrapped around the other's thigh, and his arm circled Bruce's chest, hand right above his heart. Bruce's hand had met his before drifting to sleep, and was now loosely entwined with the other's fingers as they slept on. Joker's head rested half-behind, half-on top of Bruce's, and really the same could be said for the rest of his body as well.

This fact perhaps caused the most revulsion in Alfred. The position indicated dominance, and that the Joker was, in effect, on top of Bruce. Alfred shuddered to think of it. He knew it happened, just as often as Bruce would take control. It was almost the last straw for the old man. He would almost (_almost_) understand that Bruce would want to take out his frustrations on the person who caused so many of them and to take the murderer into submission, but _this_…to _submit_ to his enemy, and even worse, to _want_ to submit to a man like this…it sickened him.

Though feelings of disgust aside, their positions also posed the dilemma to Alfred as to how he was to rouse Bruce to waking without doing the same for the terrorist who was effectively overlapping his body over his companion. Nevertheless, the meeting could not be skipped, so the butler took a short breath of preparation before moving a hand to shake Bruce's shoulder awake…

…when he noticed it.

His eyes squinted at the sight, sure he wasn't interpreting it correctly. But it was there. Joker's makeup was far from his usual best, sloppily rubbed off in patches from sweat and him (or maybe Bruce) touching his face. Bare streaks of peachy skin specked his visage, which Alfred had occasionally glimpsed rubbed free of all greasepaint, just before Bruce saw it himself and whisked the clown urgently away to the bedroom. But this time, he noticed something else. In the midst of the irregular patches of skin and paint, several true lines ran down his face, marking prominent trails through the makeup. All stemming from the corners of his eyes.

The butler lowered his eyes to the more familiar face below, to find similar dried lines etched into Bruce's cheeks, carving little racetracks through the sweat and grime he hadn't completely washed off after his nighttime escapade.

Alfred took a slight step back, taking in both their faces in full. He realized their expressions were quite more…pained than usual. No longer disturbingly peaceful together, as they were when he usually walked in on them. Their eyebrows were slightly more furrowed together, their lips just barely turned down, their facial muscles tightened as if falling asleep in a great deal of discomfort.

It was then he put the puzzle pieces together and realized just what had happened last night. Which may have attributed to their lack of sexual activity, or their neglect of using bedcovers, or why they hadn't bothered to change from their daytime clothes at all.

Bruce and the Joker had spent the last night…crying together.

Alfred then snapped alert as he saw Joker shift positions, settling in a more comfortable posture around Bruce, who stirred slightly at the movement. He wasn't sure if they were awake or not as they finished their motions and came to a deep rest once more. Then, several seconds later, he saw their hands tense and clench, squeezing together in acknowledgement of the other's presence, and need for (dare he think it)…emotional comfort.

He walked out towards the door, softly closing it shut again. Master Wayne's meeting aside, there was no way he was going to interfere with whatever this was. Bruce held all his tears in for his duties of Batman, and hadn't cried in years as far as Alfred knew. And Joker…there were certainly things he had done in his chaotic life he by all rights _should _cry over, but the fact that he _didn't_ was what seemed to define him. Alfred couldn't fathom the maniac being moved to tears over, well, anything.

But _both_ of them, crying…_together_?

Whatever caused a phenomenon of _that_ magnitude was something no other mortal should, or probably ever could, begin to guess at.

As he closed the door, he just barely glimpsed a single tear running down Joker's face, falling to rest on Bruce's cheek. In response the vigilante gripped the hand in his tighter.

…maybe the butler wasn't the only human being Bruce had left.

* * *

**A/N: And that makes, what was it…Angsty Fic No. 5 since my last chapter of "Always and Always"? Damn, I need to get working on Chapter 9 of that fic again. I've started it, just…life is getting in the way. But I'll be working on it after this, so no worries. :D But I mean, really, the last four posts of mine have the genre "Tragedy" selected. This one is "Angst/Hurt/Comfort", but still, same basic thing. I need a happier subconscious.**

**And I bet some of you thought this was gonna be my stab at the Alfred-finds-out scene, amiright? xD Fooled ya! Well, technically he /did/ find out about something, just not the fact they're sleeping together. This is more him finding out…their closeness, I guess. How it's not entiiirely perverse and wrong what Bruce is doing with Joker. He needs both foundations of Alfred and Joker to stand on (in very different ways, of course). Yeah. Not really sure where this came from, but…review if you feel so inclined! Yay! Thank you :)**


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